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Victims as Involved Stakeholders

The most victim-sensitive judges
also reported that they valued the input of "live victims" and
felt that this input via direct allocution was far too rare.

. . . crime victims aren't
interested in "gossip" about juveniles -and their families,
but they do want access to information such as prior records,
how decisions are being made, and what might have motivated
the offender to harm them.

Focus Group
comments

Crime Victims' Perspectives

Victims in all four focus groups un-animously
agreed that victims have an important role in the juvenile justice
process. Interestingly, their concept of "role" at times equated directly
to victims' rights, with a significant emphasis on the rights
to information and participation. As one victim noted:

When every situation starts,
you have rights . . . (the) right to go to court. I was not informed,
nor did I have the right to be heard. They did not have time for me
and I was not heard. I think if you are a victim that you should be
properly notified of all hearings . . . if a deal is going to be cut,
the victim is the one who should be able to cut the dealnot
somebody else. You have $50,000 (in losses), and the prosecutor says
the restitution is $1,000. I think it's hard to take.

Several victims pointed out the need
for their roles to be defined by agency policy, in addition to state
law. The lack of consistency in victims' roles is directly linked
to the lack of consistency among jurisdictions within states and the
absence of a "unified system." As it is now, both juvenile justice
processes and related victims' rights vary greatly depending upon
the jurisdiction. The need for consistent policies is emphasized by
a victim advocate who said:

We need some clear-cut guidelines
so that we know what the victims' rights are. In each county, it is
different, and the rights of the victims change. It makes it hard
on victim services to tell the victims what their rights might be.
There is nothing clear-cut across the line.

One victim emphasized that "the victim's
role should be his or her choice." This statement mirrors the longstanding
position of most victim advocates that victims should be given power
and control over issues that affect their lives in the aftermath of
a crime. This position is based on the premise that victims do not
choose to be victims, and they have little or no control over
the crime or delinquent act that resulted in their victimization.

While the victims' role is often limited
to that of witness to the crime, participating victims agreed that
they had much more to offer in the way of relevant information that
needed to be heard in court. As one victim advocate noted:

We would like to see that there
is an opportunity for victims to meet with judges or court personnel.
[One survivor] thought there were things she could have said to the
judge at some point in time about her son. There was a lot of information
that was given in the courtroom about the offender. There ought
to be personal information about the life of the homicide victim.

Judges' Perspectives

Some of the most vocal judges in one
state expressed general opposition to victim input at any stage other
than disposition, at which time they approved only victim impact statements.
However, the judges generally agreed that crime victims could play
meaningful roles throughout the juvenile justice process. Variation
was centered on the desirability of victim input, the most efficient
ways to obtain input, the nature of this input, and the relative appropriateness
and usefulness of input at different stages of the process.

A majority of judges seemed open, if
not favorably inclined, toward victim input into diversion decisions.
Judges in every state expressed the view that victims should have,
as one judge noted, "input but not discretion" in this front-end decision.
Judges were asked about whether and how victims' voices might be given
consideration in the plea agreement process. With the exception of
the aforementioned state, where this option for victim involvement
was not discussed, judges in the other groups agreed that plea-bargaining
was a critical stage for victims' input. Judges agreed that "respectful
input" should be sought at this stage, although one judge noted that
"people (i.e., professionals) in the system must have the most
significant input." One judge speculated that it was in those
cases in which victims have input into the plea bargain, and then
appear for a dispositional hearing, that their presence and involvement
"provides the magic" that can come from meaningful involvement in
the court process.

How to promote such meaningful involvement
was a more difficult issue. Should the victim's advocate make it a
point to get involved in the plea agreement meeting and would that
be feasible? Would it be enough for police to provide an accurate
pamphlet explaining the court process, including plea agreements?
According to some judges (and some members of the victims' groups),
victims who become informed figure out that the plea-bargaining process
is the point at which a critical decision will be made, so they find
ways to voice their preferences and concernsgenerally through
the prosecutor. Even judges who were most favorable toward input at
this stage saw many practical difficulties in making this happen.
Some suggested that input at plea bargaining be encouraged but carried
out on a case-by-case basis.

With very little disagreement among
the judges that victims should have some role at disposition, the
discussions at this point revolved around who was responsible for
notification and how the process could be improved, given the generally
low rate of victim participation in these jurisdictions. A secondary
issue for some judges was that victims should be prepared ("lowered
expectations" was a term used more than once) for the possible outcomes
in a dispositional hearing. Notification is a tremendous problem in
those courts in which arraignment hearings are used to accomplish
a number of other court objectives, including much of the work of
adjudication and disposition. Time between such preliminary decisions
and dispositional rulings creates windows of opportunity for notification
that are often very narrow.

An issue that assumed much greater importance
than expected generally, and in disposition discussions specifically,
was the victim impact statement. Somewhat surprisingly, judges almost
unanimously reported reading these statements quite carefully and
relying on them for their information about harm done to victims.
To place this in context, the judges most sensitive to victims also
reported that they valued the input of "actual victims" and felt that
this input was far too rare. One judge exclaimed that he had grown
tired of hearing that there is no time for verbal statements by victims
and stated the following:

There is time if we just build
in opportunities for it . . . often it only takes two or three minutes
. . . and it's worth it because the victim needs to ventilate whether
or not the judge needs the extra information.

According to another judge, the victim's
verbal statement is also of vital importance to the offender
and to others in the courtroom. Judges also valued good written victim
impact statements as a key to dispositional decisionmaking. In two
states, however, judges reported that written statements lacked the
impact they might have. One judge noted:

Impact statements have become
so routine that sometimes they seem canned . . . they seem too clean
and homogenized, so that they don't really have the "impact" we think
they should have.

Surprisingly, the issue of confidentiality
in dispositional proceedings received limited discussion among judges.
Only two states raised it as a concern. Judges in one state expressed
concern that some information was sensitive but agreed that judges'
instructions to victims and other hearing participants to keep these
materials confidential were enough to ensure the protection of offenders
and families. Similarly, when the most "pro-victim" judges considered
confidentiality, the discussion focused on how judges could use their
discretion to get around prohibitions against openness at the dispositional
phase.

Exception to this general support for
openness and accessibility came from judges in one state who believed
that information likely to be presented in a dispositional hearing
might be embarrassing to offenders and their families, perhaps even
ultimately harmful. When the moderator in a general group dialogue
in this state raised the general issue of how much victim participation
was needed at dispositions, a judge raised the issue of the need to
prohibit victims from hearing certain information about the offender's
background:

There is another important
factor that you have in juvenile court, that of confidentiality. And
the problem with victim input when we are talking about a juvenile
who may have been sexually abused, chemical dependency, psychiatric
evaluations . . . it cannot be the same as adult court because that
information is confidential, and no victim is entitled to know. Especially
in the nonpublic hearing, and even in public hearings, we get to kick
the public out when we get to (the point of) speaking about psychological
evaluations during hearings . . . and no statute has taken away that
confidentiality.

Following the objections to this statement
by several victim participants, a participating prosecutor informed
them that they were "not entitled to this personal information." This
was seconded by a judge who argued that "these families were ashamed,
and they didn't want victims to hear everything." In response, a victim
observed that the juveniles who burglarized her home "found out everything
about me and my family." Others commented that crime victims weren't
interested in "gossip" about juveniles and their families, but did want
access to information such as prior records, how decisions were made,
and what might have motivated the offender to choose to harm them. Another
judge concluded this rather lively interchange by saying that no matter
how much he and his colleagues tried to protect confidentiality, "in
[this state], we're going to open it [confidentiality] upwe're
just crazy enough to open it up."